Another two-penneth from the UK.
One small point which is worth thinking about - the types of rarities in the UK
differ somewhat from those in Australia. Many rarities in the UK only hang
around for very short periods - basically they are lost and are trying to be
somewhere else. After a feed and a rest they are off again. Or in many cases
they probably just die. They are also often in difficult-to-access places such
as northern Scottish islands. So speed and immediacy are of the essence.
As far as I can tell most rarities in Australia hang around for a while (though
not quite long enough - we looked for the Burren Junction Lapwing about 3 days
after it was last seen!) so a web based or email system is potentially all that
is needed. And also the core group of Twitchers is much smaller so they can
still use the good old telephone should a mega-important thing turn up. I also
think a completely unmoderated system such as Twitter could be useful - the
group concerned is quite small and potentially would know each other so it
would be up to each user to decide whether they can rely on the information
being supplied. But the mobile phone coverage issue can't be ignored.
PS We only twitch things in Pembrokeshire (max 40 miles Tony) and only then
reluctantly, and they have usually gone by the time we get there! And we can't
use mobile phones either as we have no coverage where we live!
Rosemary Royle
Wales, UK
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